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cf342e0
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then reviewed by the Bishops, presented to the Privy Council, lastly ratified by Royal authority." Yet there is actually no documentary evidence that the 1611 Bible ever received final written authorization from the bishops, Privy Council, or the king. While it is possible that such authorization--which would have taken the form of an Order in Council--may have been lost in the Whitehall fire of January 12, 1618 (which destroyed the Privy C..
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Alister E. McGrath |
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44e12b5
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The author compares the struggles of Martin Luther with the prevailing doctrine that a little genuine effort on our part results in a disproportionate reward of God's righteousness with a blind man who would be given $1 million - if only he could see.
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righteousness
justification
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Alister E. McGrath |
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ad31839
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Friends care for each other. Aristotle suggested that someone would wish the best for his or her friend, not because it might be of personal benefit, but because it enriched the friend. For Aristotle, friendship is about bringing out what is best in people. The best friends share a common vision of what is good and important, and help each other achieve goodness. Friends "enlarge and extend each other's moral experience" by providing "a mir..
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Alister E. McGrath |
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2d37c0a
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Lewis was thus drawn to Christianity not so much by the arguments in its favour, but by its compelling vision of reality, which he could not ignore--and, as events proved, could not resist.
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Alister E. McGrath |
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529f30c
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For Luther, it (faith) is an undeviating, trusting outlook appointment life, a constant stance of the trustworthiness of the promises of God.
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trust
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Alister E. McGrath |
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e2d6221
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Reading works of literature is about "entering fully into the opinions, and therefore also the attitudes, feelings, and total experience" of other people.[96] To read literature is thus to open us up to new ideas, or to force us to revisit those we once believed we were right to reject."
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Alister E. McGrath |
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6973ba5
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God may accept us just as we are--but he isn't going to leave us there. God wants to move us on, to help us become the people we are meant to be.
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Alister E. McGrath |
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2ef242b
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Doubt is a subject which many Christians find both difficult an sensitive. They may see it as something shameful and disloyal, on the same level as heresy. As a result, it is something that they don't- or won't- talk about. They suppress it. Others fall into the opposite trap- they get totally preoccupied by doubt. They get overwhelmed by it. They lose sight of God by concentrating upon themselves. Yet doubt is something too important to be..
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Alister E. McGrath |
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97fa3a3
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Tolkien helped Lewis to realise that the problem lay not in Lewis's rational failure to understand the theory, but in his imaginative failure to grasp its significance. The issue was not primarily about truth, but about meaning. When
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Alister E. McGrath |
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2eb4779
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For Tolkien, a myth is a story that conveys "fundamental things"--in other words, that tries to tell us about the deeper structure of things. The best myths, he argues, are not deliberately constructed falsehoods, but are rather tales woven by people to capture the echoes of deeper truths. Myths"
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Alister E. McGrath |
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9f3eb27
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Christianity brings to fulfilment and completion imperfect and partial insights about reality, scattered abroad in human culture. Tolkien gave Lewis a lens, a way of seeing things, which
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Alister E. McGrath |
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b073fdd
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Though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief.
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reason
evangelism
logic
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Alister E. McGrath |
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083d8ac
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Lewis created a new kind of marriage between theological reflection and poetic imagination.
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motivation
curiosity
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Alister E. McGrath |
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2fcd91a
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Like Matthew's Bible before it, the Geneva Bible alienated the establishment on account of its marginal notes.
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Alister E. McGrath |
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e87c370
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It was this Bible that became known as "the Great Bible." It included both the canonical and apocryphal books, mistakenly referring to the latter as the "Hagiographa." The New Testament works were printed in the order set out by Erasmus in his 1516 Greek New"
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Alister E. McGrath |
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f1f6001
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Not everyone could read Latin; in any case, as Erasmus would make clear, there were some big problems with the accuracy of the Vulgate translation. In 1516, Erasmus declared that this traditional Latin translation of the Bible was awash with translation mistakes. Once Erasmus began his scholarly work in earnest, it did not take him long to expose problems with this widely used Latin translation.
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Alister E. McGrath |
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426a903
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The evidence strongly suggests that the first English Bible to be brought to the New World was the Geneva Bible. Not only had this been available longer, it was the translation of choice for the Puritans, who valued its extensive annotations. The Geneva Bible offered both text and commentary, which served as a framework to interpret the hand of providence that had delivered them from Egypt and brought them to this new Canaan.
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Alister E. McGrath |
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ec55ede
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The first printing of the King James Bible in 1611 included a number of printing errors. For example, a small slip in the typesetting of the description of the interior of the tabernacle led to the following reading (Exodus 28:11). And for the north side the hangings were an hundred cubits, their pillars were twenty, and their sockets of brass twenty; the hoops of the pillars and their fillets of silver. But there were probably few who noti..
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Alister E. McGrath |
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d3c43e3
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A further difference between the 1611 printing of the work and the 1613 reprint is of interest. Their variant translations of Ruth 3:15 led to the earlier printing being known as the "Great He Bible" (1611) and the later one as the "Great She Bible" (1613) respectively. The passage in question describes how Boaz measured out "six measures of barley," and gave it to Ruth. The "Great He Bible" then has Boaz going off to a nearby city whereas ..
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Alister E. McGrath |
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a3e9fa5
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More serious was the misprint in an edition of 1631, which rendered Exodus 20:14 as follows: "Thou shalt commit adultery." The omission of the word "not" was speedily corrected, but not before this had caused some consternation among the Bible's readers. Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the printers of this "Wicked Bible"--as it came to be known--were fined severely for this unfortunate lapse."
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Alister E. McGrath |
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6b5868a
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The first edition of the King James Bible to be published by Oxford University Press appeared in 1675; this was followed in 1682 by a sumptuous edition prepared by the Oxford printer John Baskett. The value of the edition was greatly reduced by its many printing errors. For example, it made reference to the "Parable of the Vinegar" instead of the "Parable of the Vineyard"--an error which led it to being nicknamed the "Vinegar Bible." Its am..
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Alister E. McGrath |
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4afc0b8
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Acts 24:24 in 1611 referred to Drusilla, the wife of the Roman governor Felix, as a Jew; in 1629, this was altered to "Jewess." The original translation of Mark 10:18 read thus: "there is no man good, but one, that is, God." This could be misunderstood as implying that God was a human being. A small alteration was introduced in 1638, avoiding this implication: the text now read "there is none good but one, that is, God."
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Alister E. McGrath |
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12a8a3d
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Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41). Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak (Mark 14:38). The casual reader might gain the impression that quite different Greek words were being translated in each passage; in fact, the Greek text is identical in each case.
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Alister E. McGrath |
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d0cca88
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Erasmus had to work on the basis of the criterion of accessibility. As far as we can ascertain, none of the half dozen manuscripts were earlier than the tenth century.
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Alister E. McGrath |
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b501789
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There was now a commercial reason for removing the Apocrypha--Bibles without it were both cheaper to produce, and smaller (and hence cheaper to transport overseas). Sensitive to the importance of both production and transportation costs, the missionary societies gradually came to the view that the Apocrypha would be omitted--primarily for financial, rather than theological reasons. As far as is known, the first missionary society to take th..
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Alister E. McGrath |
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d1e8b9e
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The term synoptic gospels is often used to refer to the first three gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). This term refers to their similar literary structure,
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Alister E. McGrath |
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dcb3ade
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Hebrew idiom that the translators interpreted literally and so failed to appreciate the general drift of the text. The idiom "to rise up early to do something" actually means "to do something continually." Hence the second of the quotations just noted has the following meaning: "They did not listen to my words which I sent unto them by my servants the prophets; even though I sent them continually they still would not listen to them."
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Alister E. McGrath |
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42cbb9b
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Yet there is a final issue that needs to be noted here. The koine Greek of the New Testament is the "everyday" Greek language of working people rather than of self-conscious literary scholars and poets. The King James translators were not aware of this fact. Their location in history denied them access to this knowledge."
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Alister E. McGrath |
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040128d
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In his Bible translations, Tyndale coined such phrases as: "the powers that be" (Romans 13); "my brother's keeper" (Genesis 4); "the salt of the earth" (Matthew 5); and "a law unto themselves" (Romans 2). These phrases continue to be used, even in modern English, precisely because they are so well shaped in terms of their alliteration, rhyme, and word repetitions. Tyndale also introduced or revived many words that are still in use. He const..
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Alister E. McGrath |
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ef27d8e
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Tyndale was strangled in October 1536, and his dead body then burned at the stake. Tyndale's fate is an important reminder that biblical translation was more than just a scholarly challenge in the early sixteenth century--it was, in Tyndale's case, illegal, dangerous, and ultimately fatal.
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Alister E. McGrath |
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532b7a7
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Further concerns were expressed over the king's increasingly obvious homosexual tendencies, which led to certain royal favorites being granted favors that were the subject of much comment and envy. Robert Carr, some twenty years younger than James, was one such favorite: he became the earl of Somerset in 1613. Although James fondled and kissed his favorites in what was widely regarded as a lecherous manner in public, the court was prepared ..
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Alister E. McGrath |
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8054807
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No Marginal Notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek Words, which cannot without some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be expressed in the Text.
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Alister E. McGrath |
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c29a583
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Noah Webster, responsible for an influential dictionary that helped establish the distinctive aspects of American spelling. Webster was alarmed by a series of biblical passages that he regarded as "offensive," "unseemly," and "distasteful." Words to which he took particular exception include "piss," "privy member," "prostitute," "teat," "whore," and "womb." --
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Alister E. McGrath |
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608f04c
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The English of 1611 is not the English of the twenty-first century. It can mislead us, simply because English words have changed their meaning. For example, consider the sentence: For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep (1 Thessalonians 4:15). A modern reader would find this puzzling, in that the 1611 meaning of the word "prevent..
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Alister E. McGrath |
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c3a5c9c
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the marginal notes to the Geneva Bible did more than provide theological elucidation at points of difficulty--the "most profitable annotations upon the hard places" mentioned on the title page of the work. They offered political comments on the text, which could easily be applied to the political situation under James I--and James cordially detested what he found in those notes."
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Alister E. McGrath |
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4470657
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And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall {i} cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive. When tyrants cannot prevail by deceit, they burst into open rage. The suggestion that it was lawful to disobey or deceive kings would hardly have pleased James I of England. Yet it fitted well into the growing trend within Calvinist circles to argue for the resistance to tyrants, whether by force or de..
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Alister E. McGrath |
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5f78e6a
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A careful study of the court records of the northern English city of Durham suggests that "you" had replaced "thou" as the normal form of address in spoken English by about 1575."
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Alister E. McGrath |
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c573b6f
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changes--the use of "ye," "thou," and so forth remains unchanged. The King James translators simply did not believe that they had the authority to make changes reflecting developments in the English language, and so continued to reproduce the English of nearly three generations earlier."
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Alister E. McGrath |
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965ed27
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So why did the King James translators use an archaic verbal form in what was meant to be a modern translation? Again, the answer seems to lie with the rules provided for the translators, which more or less bound them to use the language of 1525 in their translations. A comparison of Tyndale's translation of Matthew 7:1-7 (see above) with the King James Bible shows that precisely the same older Middle English verbal endings are found in both..
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Alister E. McGrath |
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b8ed164
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Lewis discovered that God was the one who both disclosed and safeguarded meaning and morality.
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Alister E. McGrath |
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b4efaf9
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Heresy appears to be Christian, yet it is actually an enemy of faith that sows the seed of faith's destruction.3
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Alister E. McGrath |
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0d110ad
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Heresy thus poses a threat to faith, arguably more serious than many challenges originating from outside the Christian church.
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Alister E. McGrath |
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f075f83
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They taught me longing--Sehnsucht; made me for good or ill, and before I was six years old, a votary of the Blue Flower.
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Alister E. McGrath |
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dd5789e
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I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."[14]"
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Alister E. McGrath |